This invention relates to degradation of electrical signals representing images and audio of film and television productions. More particularly, this invention relates to real-time simulation of such signal degradation.
The visual and audio quality of an original production, which may be a live or animated film or television production, or a live transmission, is rarely what an end-user (e.g., a television viewer or moviegoer) is actually sees or hears. The visual and sound quality of an original production initially may be degraded because of a technical limitation or problem related to the electronic capture of the production. For example, common picture defects can be caused by herringbone clothing, white shirts, venetian window blinds, film grain, and excessively rapid camera motion. Picture and sound quality of the captured images and audio may then be further degraded as a result of post-production processing, video processing, signal transmission, and display at an end-user's location. Post-production processing can involve editing, color correction, film or tape transfers, replays, storage, and duplication. Signal transmission can involve compression and decompression, analog and digital conversions, scrambling and descrambling, and noise and artifacts (i.e., stray entities that do not belong in an image). Display at an end-user's location can involve low quality picture resolution and high levels of audio distortion.
Many of these degradations can be cost-effectively corrected or compensated for by making changes to the production while that production (e.g., a particular scene) is in progress. For example, simple changes to a set (including to background, props, colors, lighting, microphone positions, wardrobe, etc.) can often eliminate the causes or at least lessen the effects of various picture and sound degradations. However, a producer (or director, cinematographer, recording engineer, etc.), who creates the film or video representation of the pictures and sounds of a film or television production, has no way of knowing, and in particular, cannot see or hear the effects of various degradations while a production is in progress. Thus, a producer has no opportunity to make typically cost-effective on-the-spot changes that could compensate for or correct various degradations that will affect the quality of the final product seen and heard by end-users.
Even “dailies,” for example, which are film workprints created overnight for review in the morning to ensure that the previous day's scenes were filmed as desired, do not give a producer the opportunity to make immediate changes while those scenes are being filmed. At best, needed corrections usually involve re-assembling the cast and crew and re-shooting the scene on the next available day. Dailies are intended to be reviewed primarily for scene content and gross technical problems (e.g., inaudible dialog) while a cast, crew, and set are still available. Because dailies are unedited and unprocessed (e.g., no color correction), they are not of the same quality as that intended to be displayed to an end-user. Moreover, dailies are not intended to show the effects of subsequent degradations that are likely to occur. Thus, dailies are of limited value for making corrections and enhancements that would improve or maintain a desired level of picture and sound quality to be seen and heard by end-users.
Similarly, although other picture and sound quality reviews are typically conducted before the film or videotape leaves a production facility, those reviews usually occur after completion of most filming or taping. Moreover, they also do not take into account any subsequent degradations that are likely to occur after the finished product leaves the production facility for distribution to theater or television operators. Again, little or no opportunity exists to correct or compensate for degradations while film or television productions are in progress.
The same is true of known automated equipment and processes that operate reactively to correct various types of detected degradations (e.g., transmission errors, distortions, and other quality related problems). These corrections are responsive to degradations that have already occurred and are not normally responsive to subsequent degradations that are likely to occur. Furthermore, correcting or compensating for some types of degradations may be less complex and costly had they been anticipated and acted upon while a production was in progress.
In view of the foregoing, it would be desirable to be able to provide a degradation simulation of a just-completed portion of a film or television production that can be viewed substantially simultaneously while that production is in progress.
It would also be desirable to be able to provide a variety of selectable degradation simulations of a just-completed portion of a film or television production that can be viewed substantially simultaneously while that production is in progress.
It would further be desirable to be able to provide a quantitative analysis of a degradation simulation of a just-completed portion of a film or television production that can be reviewed substantially simultaneously while that production is in progress.
It would still further be desirable to be able to provide a degradation simulation that highlights unacceptable degradations of a just-completed portion of a film or television production that can be viewed substantially simultaneously while that production is in progress.